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'Washington to Warhol' — a portrait of America

By 1820, the original copy of the Declaration of Independence was starting to age, and John Quincy Adams, then secretary of state, wanted the surviving Founding Fathers — not to mention government officials and universities — to have replicas of the document. So the future president commissioned William J. Stone to print 200 facsimiles, plus one for the engraver himself.

Some 50 copies have been located today, and soon one of them will be up for sale and is expected to fetch $400,000 to $600,000.

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It’s part of an estimated $4 million exhibition from Christie’s auction house on display from Friday through Sunday at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Washington. The “Washington to Warhol” exhibition includes a portrait of President George Washington by Theodore Sully ($700,000 to $1 million) and Andy Warhol prints ($120,000 to $180,000), among other items that will be featured in upcoming auctions.

“We realized we had these interesting, historic works that captured the great ideas of our democracy and our founders. And we felt that this energy of an election year would be an excellent time to showcase it,” said Becky MacGuire, a specialist in Chinese export art at Christie’s.

Another historic item: an original draft of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (valued at $250,000 to $350,000) written by Julia Ward Howe in November 1861.

Howe had traveled to Washington with her husband, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who was assessing the medical care of Union soldiers during the early days of the Civil War. She accompanied her husband to what she thought would be a routine military drill but stumbled into a skirmish instead.

“She wrote in her diary about how moved she was. She had nothing to give to the war effort — her sons were too young, her husband was too old and she was a poet,” MacGuire said.

Howe wrote the song in the middle of the night at the Willard Hotel, just down the street from where its original draft will be on display this weekend.

“It was published in a magazine, and it became an iconic American song,” MacGuire said.

The exhibition also includes Chinese porcelain owned by Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, and a silver teapot owned by Revolutionary patriot Paul Revere.

MacGuire said items like these help humanize American icons.

“It shows up tangible reflections of some really amazing people and some really important ideas,” she said. “It’s a great reminder of our country’s incredible and unique history. To think of these great figures that are often quite cold in the history book — it really does bring them to life.”

When the pieces are not on display, they are stored at a warehouse near the auction house’s U.S. headquarters in New York City, said Patrick McGrath, a Christie’s specialist in books and manuscripts. Christie’s purchased the pieces from museums or from families that passed them down from generation to generation.

“With these pieces, people make a real connection with these politicians as human beings. They aren’t just figures on Mount Rushmore or statues. They’re flesh-and-blood human beings,” McGrath said.